Microcontroller for monitoring bushfire

[milanqingren]

gprs picaxe

Hi all

I will design a microcontroller system for monitoring bushfire. It should be able to detect smoke, temperature, pressure and humidity. This system is required to utilize mobile phone techonology as a medium of communication. Moreover, I should use GPS or GPRS to find location. The solar source is used to provide power. There are some system requirements such as waterproof, tamper proof, low cost etc.

I am not familiar with the microcontroller. How do I choose microcontroller? How do I choose peripheral devices such as A/D, D/A and memory? How do I connect microcontroller with mobilephone? Could you give me some suggestion?

Thank you very much!

 

[bobsanjose]

picaxe gsm

Well, to get you started;
Your microcontroller will be a small part of the total system and as the functionality includes mobile phone and GPS, you probably want to consider an ARM7 or even ARM9 device. Speed for location or calling is not really an issue, so ARM7 could probably do it. You will need a lot of specific sensors that are not part of the micro itself. If your device is out there in the wilderness a big problem will be dust, dirt as this could be mistaken for smoke by an optical sensor.
Picking your microcontroller in such a case could be determined by the software drivers you will need. E.g. what software for GPS or mobile phone technology does already exist for it, you really don't want to write that yourself.
Speed seems not critical as you do not need any fast response time. Power could be somewhat critical but your analog system with all the sensor will probably dominate your power consumption.
You want the system to work at high temperatures, so do not use devices that are specified from 0C-70C, may be you want to look for an automotive grade device -40/125C..

Just a few thoughts to get you going

Bob

 

[milanqingren]

smoke bushfire sensor

Yes, the programm for me is a big issue so that I want to use a simple microcontroller, for example, 8051. If I choose such microcontroller, is it possible to achive my aims?

Thank you very much

 

[kannan.k]

picaxe gsm module

Hi

For this project IMHO a simple microcontroller can be used.
You could start off with measuring the temperature. you can use either a sensor that gives a digital op ( for example I2C temperature sensor or likewise) or use a sensor that gives callibrated analog output (ex: LM35) and use an ADC.

If adding a seperate ADC is not viable you could use the PIC microcontrollers as they have inbuilt ADC with plenty of channels. the same goes for the other parameters - smoke, pressure and humidity. The difficulty is in finding the right sensors.

As for the location transmission, GPS modules are easily avaliable and you can use the basic 8051 itself since the GPS module uses serial communication.
For transmitting the information you could use a mobile phone ( to reduce the cost) or use a integrated GPS/GSM module ( to reduce the size).

programming them should not be a difficulty since you have to use the serial port only and use the AT commands to send/receive the SMS and to get the data from the GPS module.

since the module is to be solar powered you could include batteries for power storage and the controller can monitor the battery health (of course this is when the main project is over)

This can turn out to be a very exciting project. all the best.

hope this helps.
kannan.k

 

[IanP]

If you are new to microcontrollers you may consider PICAXE microcontrollers:

PICAXE is the name of a UK-sourced microcontroller system based on the PIC chip. It was initially intended for education and electronics hobbyists, but has gained use in serious technical fields, especially for rapid prototype development. It uses pre-loaded bootstrap code to allow programs to be downloaded using a simple RS-232 serial connection.
The language used to program PICAXE chips is similar to that used in the US-sourced BASIC Stamps, and resembles the BASIC programming language. Like the BASIC Stamp the PICAXE system is interpreter-based but, rather than using an external I²C EEPROM for program storage, uses either on-chip EEPROM or Flash Memory. This allows a single-chip solution which is far cheaper and with a smaller circuit footprint than the comparable BASIC Stamp circuit.

**broken link removed**
Just giving a nod to the PicAxe .. Cheap, tiny and effective .. Love em ..

Regards,
IanP

 

[milanqingren]

I am just familiar with MATLAB. Is there any microcontroller which supports MATLAB?